https://news.biglobe.ne.jp/entertain...941949369.html

Apparently the offer for the book came in August of 2018 (when TROUBLE came out basically) and the plan from the beginning was to make a drama but the book was to become the source material for the drama.

In the Discord, we'd been talking about the drama since it ended a little bit as well as the last few years of Ayu's career and it seemed a bit like there was a long game in action in releasing the book. Knowing that Max had scouted Kalen around then or the year prior, I think he had already found her to "become Ayu" by that time or in 2017 and that was what started this 'plan' to both debut Kalen and promote Ayu as well whenever the drama did come out. And it seems to have gone off exactly like they wanted to. Interest was piqued when the book came out in August of 2019 and then the drama came earlier this year with Kalen as the lead who had also debuted as a singer in May 2019. Sales of A COMPLETE have gone up as the drama continued to air and now that it's over, Kalen has been on MUSIC STATION with a new single and Ayu has her first music since 2018 when they began putting the book together along with MORE music to come. I get the vibe though that it was all sort of Max's plan and Ayu went along with it because there was nothing to lose really and there was more to gain if it did well which it did for the most part. Max also used the drama as a reason to step down as CEO after it 'reminded him of his old self' and go back to producing music, something that he had already been thinking about and tweeting about before the drama started.

As I and Andrenekoi suspected since last year, it was a big marketing plan. If you remember well, TROUBLE CM is Ayu slowly taking over Tokyo landscape until there's only her face everywhere.

omg i'm shaking a new dawn of Ayu's reign is around the corner. Ayu's own BEST FICTION and beyond era is coming

^from your mouth to god’s ears.

preach it sis

I think that was the suspicion to begin with for many but on a surface level, like "The book is being put out to get her in the news again" but it seems to be more than that given what has happened post-drama. I know a lot of people were like "Why a book, why now, and why tell us at all?" and it makes sense if it was for the production of the drama and eventual promo of Ayu and Kalen.

Does this mean we could possibly get A BEST 3 after we get new songs from ayu?

If we think in retrospect, it's all linked: the promotion of TROUBLE (+ that cover with people speculating if the hand grabbing Ayu's boob was from... Max lol), the release of the book, Kalen's debut (emulating some aspects of Ayu's golden era but with a contemporary taste), re-release of LOVEppears (the core of book contente, music-wise), dorama's annoucement then annoucing Kalen as its protagonist, the neverending TROUBLE Tour (linking the album with all of that)...

TROUBLE as it was seemed to be leading to a buildup of some sort. The time inbetween the book planning/drama could have just been biding time until the drama actually happened. Supposing no COVID-19, the timeline looked like it'd have ended up like this.

TROUBLE album release (starting to get the book ready)
TROUBLE tour 2018-2019
TROUBLE tour 2019-2020 -misunderstood-
Saigo no Trouble (drama starts and ends, Ohia no Ki releases)
TROUBLE arena tour (working on more music, photoshoots)
?

Maybe it was planned that something would come when the "TROUBLE was over"? Or is still being planned anyway. The lack of music for that ~2 year period was a bit much though if that was part of the plan.

Aeternal actually did make it to the book, didn't it?

Trouble wasn't the main product, just the campaign starter... To the point she axed pretty much the whole EP from the tour.

Yeah, I think aeternal got woven in like other songs.

https://news.nifty.com/article/entam.../12239-731321/

Some of the Komuro / Max stuff got mentioned here. Basically he refused to make Ayu songs in 2019 because he wasn't in the mood but decided to do it for Nogizaka46 after the AKB boss was really enthusiastic so he said yes after saying no initially.

:popcorn:popcorn I can't stand TK, and I don't like how his songs sound dated. I don't think his songs "age" well.

I need to get on this discord with all the free time I have lately lol.

You should join! It's a good place to reminisce and discuss in real time too.

AHS has discord?

Yep. https://discord.gg/hBKyXpd is the link! I actually saw your name there though a while ago so you may have joined years back!